Lando Norris has revealed he completed the United States Grand Prix while being "heavily dosed up" on painkillers to help with severe headaches.
Norris started the race in Texas from sixth place, and that was where he finished. Those figures suggest it was an uneventful afternoon for the McLaren driver, but that was far from the case as he was forced to recover after a dreadful start off the line.
He was caught up behind the first-corner incident between George Russell and Carlos Sainz, which forced him to slow down rapidly and meant he was overtaken by several other racers. In the opening stages he looked like slipping out of contention entirely, running in 13th place at one point.
But he managed to rally and make his way back through the field, using all his concentration and skill to get back to where he started and claim about as many points as was going to be possible for him in the race.
Afterwards, he told reporters he had managed to do all that thanks to the painkillers which helped him cope with headaches caused by the relentless bouncing of his car on the bumpy surface in Austin. "There was so much focus during the last 10 laps, especially on the track like this," he said.
"There's so many bumps. I was heavily dosed up on headache tablets because I struggled a lot with that this weekend, because it's bumpy. It's really not nice – I don't know if it's better for us or worse for us than other cars, but it's something I struggle a lot with.
"When I take the tablets it probably doesn't make a big difference in the end, but it's something I struggle with so [it's then] easy to make mistakes, so easy to lock up, so easy to spin. Valtteri [Bottas] span just in front of me for no reason, that I know of anyway."
Norris went on to add that the resurfacing work carried out on part of the track had helped, but conceded that the bouncing is simply a side-effect of the 2022 cars more than anything else. "Some bits were less [bumpy], so I'm very happy that they did [resurface]," added the Brit.
"But they resurfaced half of it, that half is a little bit better – not as good as it needs to be, especially in these cars. I think in last year's cars we wouldn't be complaining, but in this year's cars we complain about everything."
